Autumn 2023 Banter Hangout

[hardypalmguy]

40s are kind of an odd metric because technically they are possible at any time of the year. While unlikely in the summer at the heat island stations, they are fairly expected in rural areas. At Detroit the last 40s were June 13th & the first 40s September 14th this year, although when DTW hit 50 in August, most of the area was in the 40s.
 
The current average first Fall freeze at Detroit, October 23rd, is 1 day later than the long-term average of October 22nd.

It’s rare that MKE drops into the 40s in the summer.


.

[Lightning]

1 hour ago, hardypalmguy said:

If you live in a cold swamp you’ll get 40s every month due to inversions. I see it on my way to work all summer. Temp crashes in swamps. Not representative of the entire area.

Nope.  Definitely don't live in a swamp.  Quite the opposite really.  

[RogueWaves]

I'm 10 mi NNW of DTW on the edge of the burbs. Normally temps stay up here compared to the countryside 5 miles west. The couple mornings in August in the high 40's was surprising and it's been a very moist summer. The entire month of August felt more like September had arrived ahead of schedule. Sometimes months swap places like that. 

[michsnowfreak]

11 hours ago, hardypalmguy said:

It’s rare that MKE drops into the 40s in the summer.


.

Idk how much of a heat island MKE is compared to its suburbs. At Detroit, June usually sees 40s but July and August rarely do. However some of the "cold spots" in outlying areas often do. This year however, with a low of 50 officially on Aug 31, most of the area was in the 40s that morning. So realistically, July was the only month that most of the area didn't see 40s, though some got very close (White lake & Ann Arbor were 50).

[michsnowfreak]

9 hours ago, RogueWaves said:

I'm 10 mi NNW of DTW on the edge of the burbs. Normally temps stay up here compared to the countryside 5 miles west. The couple mornings in August in the high 40's was surprising and it's been a very moist summer. The entire month of August felt more like September had arrived ahead of schedule. Sometimes months swap places like that. 

It was the coolest August since 2004. 

[hardypalmguy]

Another interesting stat that shows how fast things are warming up here.

[RogueWaves]

/\ I'm calling for SEWI to roast. I mean literally it's going to catch fire and burn-up completely at this rate! Any sane person would get the h*ll out of Dodge! 

[Chinook]

I've been kind of messing around with Tornadoarchive dot com recently, clicking the "random tornado day" feature. Along the way, I rediscovered some interesting days

July 1-3, 1997: a total of 52 tornadoes hit the upper Midwest and into the Northeast, including one in Canada near Detroit. Apparently this was the largest continuous outbreak of tornadoes in the month of July. There was an F2 tornado in the city of Detroit. Not directly associated with a tornado, 5 deaths due to straight line wind at Grosse Pointe Shores MI. Two F3 tornadoes were in Michigan, one was in Minnesota, and one was in Ohio.

June 24, 2003: a total of 67 tornadoes occurred in one day in the "Great South Dakota Tornado Outbreak." Also, a total of 125 tornadoes occurred within a 3-day time span (June 21-24). A single F4 tornado occurred on June 24 and hit the small town of Manchester SD. The residents never rebuilt the city. There were a large number of F0 tornadoes in South Dakota in a couple of counties.

November 22-24 2004: Wikipedia says this was the largest number of tornadoes (104) in one continuous outbreak in the month of November. The worst ones were just three F3 tornadoes in Louisiana and Mississippi. 61 tornadoes were rated F0

 

[CheeselandSkies]

11 hours ago, Chinook said:

I've been kind of messing around with Tornadoarchive dot com recently, clicking the "random tornado day" feature. Along the way, I rediscovered some interesting days

July 1-3, 1997: a total of 52 tornadoes hit the upper Midwest and into the Northeast, including one in Canada near Detroit. Apparently this was the largest continuous outbreak of tornadoes in the month of July. There was an F2 tornado in the city of Detroit. Not directly associated with a tornado, 5 deaths due to straight line wind at Grosse Pointe Shores MI. Two F3 tornadoes were in Michigan, one was in Minnesota, and one was in Ohio.

June 24, 2003: a total of 67 tornadoes occurred in one day in the "Great South Dakota Tornado Outbreak." Also, a total of 125 tornadoes occurred within a 3-day time span (June 21-24). A single F4 tornado occurred on June 24 and hit the small town of Manchester SD. The residents never rebuilt the city. There were a large number of F0 tornadoes in South Dakota in a couple of counties.

November 22-24 2004: Wikipedia says this was the largest number of tornadoes (104) in one continuous outbreak in the month of November. The worst ones were just three F3 tornadoes in Louisiana and Mississippi. 61 tornadoes were rated F0

 

That's surprising, considering the extremely prolific (and rather more impactful) outbreak that occurred over several days in November, 1992, tellingly dubbed "The Widespread Outbreak."

Both 2004 and 2005 had quite active Novembers for (and, of course, extremely active and impactful Atlantic hurricane seasons) despite rather different ENSO states.

They also had quite different springs for activity. 2004 might still be the best chase season this millennium for anyone who's been chasing that long, if they managed to score the storm of the day on May 12th, 22nd and/or 24th, 29th, and June 12th. 2005 had a mediocre to poor May, although it likewise featured a rather active period in the first half of June. I remember pulling up the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research site (Pivotal Weather didn't exist at the time, and I didn't know about the CoD site) on my dial-up connection and seeing that trough coming in on the 180-hour GFS frame. It still only goes out to 192 hours on that site!

[michsnowfreak]

14 hours ago, RogueWaves said:

/\ I'm calling for SEWI to roast. I mean literally it's going to catch fire and burn-up completely at this rate! Any sane person would get the h*ll out of Dodge! 

Id be interested to hear from any other SE WI poster if MKE has had an increasing heat island problem in recent years. Only because they always seem to get these palm-induced records that surrounding areas dont.

5 latest days of first high in the 50s at Detroit

Oct 29, 1963

Oct 18, 1960

Oct 17, 2013 (wow)

Oct 16, 1973

Oct 15, 1955

 

[hardypalmguy]

30 minutes ago, michsnowfreak said:

Id be interested to hear from any other SE WI poster if MKE has had an increasing heat island problem in recent years. Only because they always seem to get these palm-induced records that surrounding areas dont.

5 latest days of first high in the 50s at Detroit

Oct 29, 1963

Oct 18, 1960

Oct 17, 2013 (wow)

Oct 16, 1973

Oct 15, 1955

 

Probably one of the newer observers at DTW keeping the sensor in an ice bath.  Reads way low lately.

[michsnowfreak]

29 minutes ago, hardypalmguy said:

Probably one of the newer observers at DTW keeping the sensor in an ice bath.  Reads way low lately.

LMAO @Stebo do you want to do the honors? I guess accurate temps and not running 2-6° warmer than every surrounding station means the sensor is in an ice bath.

 

I answered my own question re: SE WI. All you have to do is look at the daily RTP to see MKE runs noticeably warmer than almost everywhere.

https://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=DTX&issuedby=MKX&product=RTP&format=ci

[Chinook]

3 hours ago, CheeselandSkies said:

That's surprising, considering the extremely prolific (and rather more impactful) outbreak that occurred over several days in November, 1992, tellingly dubbed "The Widespread Outbreak."

Both 2004 and 2005 had quite active Novembers for (and, of course, extremely active and impactful Atlantic hurricane seasons) despite rather different ENSO states.

They also had quite different springs for activity. 2004 might still be the best chase season this millennium for anyone who's been chasing that long, if they managed to score the storm of the day on May 12th, 22nd and/or 24th, 29th, and June 12th. 2005 had a mediocre to poor May, although it likewise featured a rather active period in the first half of June. I remember pulling up the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research site (Pivotal Weather didn't exist at the time, and I didn't know about the CoD site) on my dial-up connection and seeing that trough coming in on the 180-hour GFS frame. It still only goes out to 192 hours on that site!

The NCAR/UCAR web site has had the same useful surface-observations interface for, I believe, over 20 years. The models part of the web site hasn't changed either. Of course, weather enthusiasts have moved on to much better model web sites. It's one of those things that's kind of a constant in the universe. The CoD weather web site has existed for over 20 years, but of course, they pretty much upgraded everything. They have kept some of the color-bars used for model maps. So that's kind of neat. Not a whole lot stays the same on the internet. Another thing that's stayed the same a long time: NCEP/NCAR reanalysis on NOAA-PSD, exact same color-bars and interface for selecting plot parameters.

[Stebo]

1 hour ago, hardypalmguy said:

Probably one of the newer observers at DTW keeping the sensor in an ice bath.  Reads way low lately.

You are an idiot and nothing is wrong with the sensor

[hardypalmguy]

You are an idiot and nothing is wrong with the sensor

MKE sensor fine too.

[Geoboy645]

2 hours ago, michsnowfreak said:

LMAO @Stebo do you want to do the honors? I guess accurate temps and not running 2-6° warmer than every surrounding station means the sensor is in an ice bath.

 

I answered my own question re: SE WI. All you have to do is look at the daily RTP to see MKE runs noticeably warmer than almost everywhere.

https://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=DTX&issuedby=MKX&product=RTP&format=ci

To expand on this, MKE is located at General Mitchell Airport. General Mitchell is not only well within the UHI, but also dramitically affected by its distance to the lake of only about 2 miles. This is why sometimes MKE really isn't the best gauge for the entire Milwaukee metro or even the city. 

[Chinook]

Now this Aviationweather dot gov web site is changing, allowing a more complicated interface for the METARs. I kind of liked the ease of use.

 

[Stebo]

2 hours ago, hardypalmguy said:

MKE sensor fine too.

It's not representative of the city at all. You know this but ignore that fact.

 

1 hour ago, Geoboy645 said:

To expand on this, MKE is located at General Mitchell Airport. General Mitchell is not only well within the UHI, but also dramitically affected by its distance to the lake of only about 2 miles. This is why sometimes MKE really isn't the best gauge for the entire Milwaukee metro or even the city. 

Exactly 

[bowtie`]

Totally anecdotal but they shut off the fountains at the southside park and in the hospital retention ponds last week. Fall is here and they are expecting the freezing weather.

[Chinook]

With reference to my previous post, the Manchester SD massive F4 tornado (June 24, 2003) must have had some reason why the STP would have been considerably greater than 1. (say, for example, locally lower LCL and higher 0-1km SRH.) Compare the huge CAPE, huge SCP and low STP here.

 

[hardypalmguy]

Totally anecdotal but they shut off the fountains at the southside park and in the hospital retention ponds last week. Fall is here and they are expecting the freezing weather.

That seems early especially for down there.

[bowtie`]

6 minutes ago, hardypalmguy said:

That seems early especially for down there.

I am sure it is more preventative maintenance. Better to be early rather than late and burn out a pump.

[bowtie`]

Just saw a news story that Waukesha, Wi is diverting Lake Michigan water to their city. But of course they are suppose to put back more water into the river than they pull out of the Great Lake.

[hardypalmguy]

10 hours ago, bowtie` said:

Just saw a news story that Waukesha, Wi is diverting Lake Michigan water to their city. But of course they are suppose to put back more water into the river than they pull out of the Great Lake.

City was too big for their local water supply, so they are stealing water from the big pond.  $300 million and 35 miles of pipe.  Ridiculous.

[luckyweather]

Found a new webcam in the western UP to watch for the onset of winter. 
 

 

[RogueWaves]

10 hours ago, luckyweather said:

Found a new webcam in the western UP to watch for the onset of winter. 
 

 

Haha, looks just like my 1st sled

[TheClimateChanger]

On 10/6/2023 at 8:13 PM, hardypalmguy said:

It’s rare that MKE drops into the 40s in the summer.


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I don't think there should be any legitimate doubt that cool summer nights have dropped precipitously. Where I'm from, it used to be fairly commonplace to have at least a few lows at or below 50F (10C) even in July, and now it rarely drops to those levels in the month of July. And that's pretty common to much of the region.

[TheClimateChanger]

I mean you don't even need to fit a trend line to these graphs to see the drop.

Mansfield, Ohio

Elkins, WV (elevation: 1900')

Morgantown, WV

Wheeling, WV [long break in threaded record, but provides interesting dichotomy]

[Stebo]

An end of an era next year, Skilling has been a true inspiration to so many mets for so many years and a wonderful guy overall. People use the word legend too much but Tom truly is a legend in meteorology. 

[RogueWaves]

2 hours ago, Stebo said:

An end of an era next year, Skilling has been a true inspiration to so many mets for so many years and a wonderful guy overall. People use the word legend too much but Tom truly is a legend in meteorology. 

I first caught Tom via cable 42 years ago. He was so far above any TV Met I had seen up to that point. As if I'd only seen Pee Wee baseball and then somebody took me to a Major League playoff game. Glad for those Chicagoans pre-www that had Tom as their local guy.